Tuesday, August 30, 2011

FULL TEXT: Pittsfield, Mass., July 28.— Pale, as if all color in her face had been removed by acid, her limbs trembling. Mrs. Gladys C. Dunn. former beautiful society woman of Oakland, walked to the petitioners' rail in court here today on the arm of her attorney and brought her trial for murder to sudden and unexpected end by pleading guilty to killing her three-year-old baby boy.

She was sentenced to one year at hard labor in the Pittsfield house of correction.

The plea brought to a close one of the strangest stories of jealousy that ever was told, a jealousy that was the fruit of long unhappiness crowned with joy at the love of the novelist and editor, J. Allan Dunn, only to be lost when her own baby boy, she thought, was winning from her husband the attention which she wanted for herself alone.

~ JEALOUS OF BABY BOY SHE SHOOTS HIM. ~

All the love of mother for child fled before this sweep of jealousy, according to the story of Mrs. Dunn; she hated the beautiful boy for whose life she had gone herself close into the valley of death. So she shot the child as he sat in his wicker chair at the Lenox home of her husband. Her effort to kill herself failed.

The husband was in court today and rushed to his wife’s side when she made her plea, and tottered as if on verge of collapse. A writer of fiction, a dealer in emotions. Dunn had found in his own wife an emotionalism beyond the dreams of a fictionist, a nature beyond all reckoning.

Summer resort spectators crowded the court today when the trail was to be resumed after the complete collapse last week of the defendant. These curious ones craned their necks as the woman went forward, haltingly, often seeming as if she would fall before she reached the rail.

~ ADMITS MANSLAUGHTER WITH HALTING VOICE. ~

The decision to change her plea, after the trial has proceeded for three days, was communicated to Justice Brown shortly after court convened today by John F. Knoxson, leading attorney for the defense.

When he reached the rail, the clerk turned to her.

“Gladys Dunn, do you wish to change your plea?” he asked.

Her voice was barely audible, but she spoke with only a slight pause after the first word:

“Yes – I plead guilty to manslaughter.”

Her husband led her to a chair and district Attorney Ely began a brief review of the case for the prosecution. He told of the state’s theory that the crime was committed as the result of a wild fit of jealousy after a quarrel with her husband.

“This case is one of the most pathetic in the criminal annals of the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” he said.

In pronouncing sentence, Justice Brown explained why he would not inflict a long prison term.

“There are certain things,” he said, “that bespeak an unsound mind on the part of the defendant. But it must be remembered that in the quarrel which preceded the killing of the child she had no weapon. She had to go upstairs and procure a weapon before the deed was committed.”

~ TORTURE SUFFERED MOVES COURT TO LENIENCY. ~

“In view of what I believe the defendant has suffered and what she will suffer, the court is disposed to leniency. What I could impose would add to the torture she already has suffered. The court therefore accepts the plea of guilty of manslaughter and sentences the defendant to one year in the house of corrections at hard labor.”

Women in the courtroom hurriedly rushed outside and lined up on the courthouse steps, but the sheriff, fearing a repetition of earlier incidents when Mrs. Dunn was reviled, kept her secluded in his office until the women grew weary and went away.

Testimony at the trial showed that after shooting her son, she desired to shoot herself but did not succeed because her husband had removed the bullet clip from the automatic pistol. She seized a bottle of chloroform and took a draught which nearly caused her death.

Her attorney, in summing up the case for the defense, spoke of her intensely affectionate nature and the effect that the quarrel with her husband had upon her.

[“Gladys Dunn Changes Plea To Guilty; Jealousy Is Motive For Grim Tragedy - Is Given One ~ Year For Slaying Her Son – Former Oakland Beauty Stops Trial on Fourth Day to Admit.Unnatural Crime; Husband Shows His Solicitude - Attorney Makes Impassioned Leniency Plea and the Court Softens Sentence Because of the Suffering Undergone.” Oakland Tribune (Ca.), Jul. 28, 1919, p. 1]

Thursday, August 25, 2011

FULL TEXT: A wild, post-midnight shooting spree that
reached into Springdale, Lowell, and Farmington left five persons dead and .a
sixth critically wounded this morning.

Fayetteville police captured a woman identified as Shirley
Marie Curry, 37, of Lowell, disarmed her and turned her over to the Springdale
police. Prosecutor Mahlon Gibson said he will know by Monday what charges will
be filed.

James Robert Dotson, 46, of Farmington, was shot and
critically wounded about 1:30 a.m. by a woman who knocked at the door of his
trailer home and identified herself as “Shirley.”

Dotson was taken first to the Fayetteville Veterans
Hospital suffering from wounds in the head and back, then transferred to the VA
Hospital at Little Rock.

~ CUSTODY CHANGED ~

Police said the three Curry children had been living with
Mrs. Curry, but custody was recently awarded to the father. Sabrina had
recently left Mrs. Curry’s home in Lowell to live with her father at
Springdale.

Springdale police said they were first, notified of the
incidents about 12:57 a.m. when they received a call on the shootings at the
Jimmy Lee Curry home, where they found Curry and Sabrina dead. Curry’s wife,
Mrs. Saundra Mollenhoff Curry, apparently escaped by running out a back door of
the residence.

Springdale police broadcast a description of the woman
driver of a pickup truck seen leaving the home, and the truck’s license number.
Acting on this information Lowell Marshal Marion Foster went to Mrs. Carry’s
home, where he found Richard Allen Curry dead and Jessie Lee Curry wounded.
Jessie Lee died later at Springdale Memorial Hospital.

Later the body of Miss Brophy was found at her home in
Springdale. Police believe her death is related to the other slayings.

Before Miss Brophy’s body was found at 3:J2 a.m.,
Fayetteville Patrolmen Gen Phillips and Frank Upton spotted the pickup truck
described by Springdale authorities. They stopped the truck on Wedington Drive
at Sang Avenue and arrested Mrs. Curry.

The two officers said they found a .38 caliber revolver on
the seat of the pickup near Mrs. Curry’s right leg.

Police speculated that Richard Allen and Jessie Lee Curry
were shot first at Mrs. Curry’s home in Lowell. Theybelieve the next
victims were Jimmy Lee and Sabrina Curry, Miss Brophy’s murder is believed to
have been the last death, followed by the wounding of Dotson at Farmington.
Mrs. Curry was arrested shortly after that final incident.

~ WOMAN’S STATEMENT ~

Fayetteville police found a hand written statement in Mrs.
Curry’s possession.

The note attached to the Fayetteville police report on the
Dotson shooting was a handwritten statement, but some words in the statement
were difficult to discern.

◊•◊◊•◊

It said:

“Toots

“Okay, you are reading this or
having it read to you, it will mean I did it. Which at this sorrowful hour I
mean to. You are the only one that cared enough to even offer to come by. No
one will come near me.

“The kids are afraid of me so they say on the stand. I’m
nothing, never was. Nor ever will be. So why fight — I quit — nothing is worth it now.
Toots, you may have it all. Not that anything is worth a damn.

“There’s a pile of bills, too, but might be some left —
over — so what you will. To hell with it. I would have made this more legal and
binding for you if I could have, but I don’t have the time to go into all that
— So — if I goof up —to Sabrina (damn her lying soul) I leave the legal $1, to
Anna Dotson I leave all other worldly possessions I own and those I owe on --
so be it.

“Shirley M. Curry.

“P.S., Yes, sometimes even a crumb means a lot. Give Timke
the keys.”

◊•◊◊•◊

Jimmy Lee Curry was born Jan. 24, 1931 at Springdale, the
son of Zack and Ida Ledbetter Curry, A Springdale postman, be was a veteran of
the Korean War and a member of the veterans of Foreign Wars and the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. He is survived by the widow, Mrs. Saundra Mollenhoff
Curry of the home; two step brothers, Ralph and Russell Brophy of Fayetteville.

Sabrina Marie Curry wasborn Oct. 15, 1956, at Lynwood, Calif., the daughter of Jimmy Lee
and Shirley Marie Curry. She was a student at Springdale High School. Surviving
are her mother; two step-brothers, David and John Shorter of the home and the
maternal grandmother. Mrs. Letha McBroom of Huntsville.

Richard Allen Curry was born Dec. 29, 1959, at Springdale
Jessie Lee Curry was born Nov. 26, 1963, at Springdale. Both children were
students in the Springdale schools.

Miss Brophy was born Feb. 23, 1943, Daughter at
Springdale, of James and the Ida Ledbetter Brophy. She is survived by two
half-brothers Ralph and Russell Brophy of Fayetteville.

FULL TEXT: Fayetteville, Ark. – a woman who police said
wanted to “solve all the heartaches and hurts” killed her three children, her
former husband and his stepsister Saturday.

Shirley Marie Curry, 37, of Lowell, wounded a former
brother-in-law also, police said, and was arrested in Fayetteville less than
two hours after the killings. She was held without bond and authorities said
they would charge her Monday with five counts of murder and possibly assault
with intent to kill.

Sheriff’s Deputy J. D. Snow said Mrs. Curry had lost a
custody fight over one of her children Friday, and that “festered in her mind.”

“Apparently she thought this would solve all her problems,”
Snow said. He quoted her as telling him. “This, maybe, solves all the
heartaches and hurts.”

Police believe Mrs. Curry first shot her sons, Richard A.,
14, and Jesse L., 11, at her home in Lowell. Her former husband, Jimmy Lee
Curry, 42, their daughter, Sabrina, 17, and Johann Brophy, 27, Curry’s
stepsister, were killed in Springdale.

FULL
TEXT: Shirley Lee Curry, 37, of Lowell, charged in Washington Circuit Court
with the July 29 capital felony murders of her former husband and daughter and
in Benton Circuit Court with the murders of her two sons, was dismissed from
future trial and committed to the Arkansas State Hospital Wednesday by Circuit
Judge Maupin Cummings.

Trial
for Mrs. Curry in Benton Circuit Court for the two Benton County murders is
still pending. Officials there said that Benton Circuit Court will deliberate
on Mrs. Curry’s legal responsibility for the murders upon her release from the
state hospital.

The
verdicts were decreed as a result of a Tuesday medical report from the Arkansas
State Hospital which concluded that Mrs. Curry was schizophrenic and paranoid.

Dr.
George W. Johnson, commissioner of mental health services at the hospital,
recommended that Mrs. Curry be kept at the hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Mrs.
Curry was admitted to the hospital Aug. 20 for a month’s examination by order of
Washington Circuit Court.

~ARRESTED JULY 20 ~

She was arrested July 20 by Fayetteville police after a
midnight shooting spree which spanned three cities and left five people dead
and one person critically wounded.

Killed
in the shootings were Jimmy Lee Curry, 43, of 406 Michael St., Springdale, her
former husband; the couple’s three children, Sabrina Maria Curry, 17, Richard
Allen Curry. 14, and Jessie Lee Curry, 11; and Miss Jo Ann Brophy, 31, of 1710
S. Young St., Springdale, Jimmy Lee Curry’s step-sister.. James Robert Dotson,
46, of Farmington, a former brother-in- law, was critically wounded when he was
shot in the face and neck by Mrs. Curry. He was released from Veteran’s
Hospital at Little Rock a month later in good condition.

Police
now believe that the motive for the five murders resulted from a July 19 verdict
in Washington Chancery Court which awarded the couple’s three children to the
custody of Jimmy Lee Curry and his new wife, Sandra Mollenhoff Curry. Mrs.
Curry is reported to have said “I’ll kill them all” upon issuance of the
custody verdict in chancery courtroom. The couple had been divorced in 1965.

~FIRST VICTIMS ~

Police
say the killing spree began around midnight July 20 when Mrs. Curry shot her
two sons, Richard Allen and Jessie Lee, who were still living with her in
Lowell.

The
two boys were found at the home by Lowell Marshal Marion Foster a short time
later. Richard was dead at that time and Jessie, wounded, died soon severely
wounded,after at Springdale Memorial
Hospital.

Mrs.
Curry is then reported to have gone to the home of her former husband in
Springdale.

Mrs.
Sandra Curry, in the home at that time, said that Jimmy Lee Curry was shot
twice by Mrs. Curry when he answered the doorbell at about 12:30 p.m.

Mrs.
Curry then entered the louse and walked to her daughter’s room. Mrs. Sandra
Curry

said
that she heard Sabrina Marie ask who it was and a woman’s voice saying“It’s your mother.”

Sandra
Curry heard two more gunshots as she ran out the jack door of the house to the home
of a neighbor so that she could phone police. Sabrina Marie was found dead by
Springdale police at about 12:50 a.m. shot twice in the right temple.

Springdale
police then sent out a bulletin to surrounding law enforcement agencies
concerning the description and license number of the truck.

Miss
Brophy was killed shortly after the two murders at the Jimmy Lee Curry home.
Dotsoh was shot at about 1:30 a.m. when he answered a knock at the door of his
mobile home in Farmington.

Mrs. Curry was stopped by Fayetteville Patrolmen Gene
Phillips and Frank Upton around 1:50 a.m. at the intersection of Wedington
Drive and Sang Ave. A .38 caliber pistol was found on the front seat of the
pickup truck.

A
note was also found in Mrs. Curry’s possession which stated in part: “If you
are reading this or having it read to you, it will mean I did it. Which at this
sorrowful hour, I mean it. No one will come near me. The kids are afraid of me,
so they say on the stand. I’m nothing, never was. So why fight it - I quit -
nothing is worth it now.”

~
TAPE RECORDING ~

A
tape recording found at Mrs. Curry’s home July 21 indicated that two more
victims were intended for murder the night on which the shooting occurred.

Funeral
services for the five persons were held July 23 at the Sisco Funeral Home in
Springdale.

Mrs.
Curry was not charged with the death of Miss Brophy or the assault of Dotson at
the time of the initial charging July 22 in Washington Circuit Court.

She
pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at that time for the two Washington
County murders.

Mrs. Curry also pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for
the two Benton County murders July 24 in BentonCircuit Court.

Trial
for Mrs. Curry was originally set for Oct. 16 and 17 in Washington Circuit
Court.

EXCERPT (from 1998 article): Fayetteville – As far as
Washington County Chancellor Tom Butt knew, Shirley Curry was just a person he
ruled against in another emotional custody case. On July 20, 1974, the day
after the ruling, a detective woke Butt by calling him at 4 a.m. Curry went on
a shooting rampage, killing her ex-husband, her ex-sister-in-law and her three
children – 17, 14 and 11. She outlined her murderous plans on a cassette tape
police found. “We heard the tape,” the detective told Butt. “She said, ‘The
next person I’m after is that man in the black robe.’ “ Police arrested Curry
before she could follow through with her threat. At 61, she’s serving life
without parole in an Arkansas prison.

[Seth Blomeley, “Chancellor Butt has spent nearly 50 years
of hard work and no nonsense on the bench,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little
Rock, Ar.), Sep. 21, 1998]

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): Mrs. Marie Marino, 25 years old,
hurled her five-year-old daughter, Evangelina, in the path of an automobile at
Eastern Parkway and Rockaway Avenue, Brooklyn, yesterday, and attempted to
throw herself under the wheels of the car. Her husband, James, a barber,
dragged her to safety, but the child’s skull was fractured so that she died.

The impulse to kill herself and her daughter, the woman told
Detectives Donelson and Reif and Assistant District Attorney John Hurley,
attacked her when her husband refused to return to her. She was locked up in
the Brownsville Station charged with homicide.

The couple, who had separated several times recently and
took their grievance to the Domestic Relations Court. They were in court
yesterday and after they left Marino told his wife he would sue her for
divorce. “There’s your child,” cried the woman throwing the girl in front of the automobile when she heard
Marino’s declaration.

Marino was held as a material witness pending the police
investigation of the case.

FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Brooklyn, N. J. June 19. — Mothers of the human species
are noted for excessive love of offspring. For their little ones they sacrifice
to the point of suffering, toil without end, and face any danger to protect
them. Exceptions to the rule are few. The mother who will harm her child is
rare. It is usually believed she is crazy, suddenly gone mad.

Mrs.
Mary Marino, of Brooklyn, wife of James Marino, threw her five-year-old
daughter, Angelina, under an automobile, while in an argument with her husband.
The couple were standing on Eastern Parkway quarreling. They had been separated
for some time.

Mrs.
Marino says she believed Marino had been attentive to other women and was
unwilling to provide for her; that he cared for his children, but not for her,
and that he would not buy her a new dress because his interest in her was dead.

Mrs.
Marino was arraigned in the New Jersey Avenue Police Court. Creamy of skin,
rounded features, tired eyes and smoothly drawn back, pale brown hair, the
young mother stood calmly before the Magistrate. Her glance seemed to dwell on
something far off as she listened calmly to the arraignment.

More
restless was James Marino, her husband, as he sat upon the witness stand. Thin
faced, dark and wiry, he made a striking contrast to his wife, who never looked
at him.

He
was smartly dressed in a dark suit, good shoes—a touch of bright color in his
green socks. He held a new Bangkok hat in his lap. Mrs. Marino, because she is
rather stout, looks older than she is to
the casual observer. Perhaps that is why her garb appears more careless than
that of her dapper mate. She has a simple, kind face.

Why,
then, did Mrs. Marino kill her child?

After
the arraignment she sat in a chair near the front of the courtroom. During our
talk she remained calm enough till someone blunderingly spoke of her three
children, forgetting that there are but two now, and that the death of one of
them was the whole cause of the proceedings.

“My
children,” she sobbed, “there are only two now. If I could start again and live
just for them—my children.”

“Why
did you do this?”

“I
don’t know,” she said wearily.

“I
don’t remember everything. I will tell you about my married life.

“My
husband is Italian. I am of Polish descent. A difference in nationalities is bad
in marriage. It make lots of trouble.”

“Then
there was his mother. We lived in her house. I went there when I was a bride. I
was used to one sort of thing to eat. She didn’t like what I liked. I couldn’t
eat what they had and was not allowed to cook what I wanted. When I would leave
the food on my plate his mother would say was not hungry and there was
something the matter with me.”

“Nothing
I did was right. People from different countries don’t understand each other.”

“No
couple should live with the mother of one of them. We moved away before
Angelina was born—not so far — we lived next door. That was too near.”

“We
separated then. I thought he got tired of me. He liked the children, I guess, but he didn’t want to do anything
for me.”

“If
you are not set free, will you live again with your husband?” she was asked.
“Do you still love him?”

“I
don’t hate him.” she admitted. “I can’t hate him. If he acted right I would get
along fine with him.”

“After — after — I
can’t remember — the other day when it happened — a woman came up to me and said
she saw it and it was an accident, but some detective drove her away. She could
tell you it was an accident, and I wish I could find that woman. I wish she
would come and tell what she saw. She was a young Jewish woman. I remember that
much.”

“Nobody
comes to see me but my mother. My husband hasn’t been near me in the jail. Only
my mother. She is the only one who stands by me. He never even sent me a note
or anything.”

During
the arraignment the Magistrate ordered. Marino to give his wife some money,
saying she might like something in the way of food besides jail fare. Marino drew a bill outand handed it to the prisoner, who took it
listlessly, not looking up at him. Perhaps – if Mrs. Marino is to be believed –
this husband would have done better to have handed out more bills at an earlier
date.

It is
expected that Mrs. Marino will give temporary aphasia or some such plea for her
mad act.

Meanwhile
the mother who through madness or other cause caused her child’s death is
protected and cheered by her own mother, who follows the immemorial habit of
her kind. The instinct to guide and protect is maternity’s most admirable phase
when it is not overdone, as in the case of a woman who tries to guide her
offspring in matrimonial affairs, thereby obstructing desired domestic peace
and quiet.

FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3) Mrs. Marie Marino, charged with
killing her five-year-old daughter, Evangelina, by throwing her in front of an
automobile at Rockaway Avenue and Eastern Parkway, on June 4, was acquitted
yesterday afternoon in the County Court, in Brooklyn. The jury took but half an
hour in arriving at a verdict. The woman said she was discussing marital
troubles with her husband when the child was struck.

[“Mother Acquitted of Killing Child.” The New York Times
(N.Y.), Jul. 24, 1920, p. 4]

FULL TEXT: New York. July 19. – Believing the loss of his son would be the cruelest blow she could inflict upon her husband. Mrs. Anna Gades, thirty-four years old, of Williamsburg, to-day, in a fit of jealousy and anger, stabbed and killed her nineteen months’ old child, Hans. The woman clapped the child in her arms as she lay on the bed, suffering from heat. Grasping a long knife in her hand, she ran it through the child and it penetrated her own breast, inflicting a wound which was so serious that it was necessary to remove her to the Eastern District Hospital.

For several weeks the woman had acted strangely. She quarreled often with her husband and openly accused him of paying attention to her sister, who lives in Bronx. She imagined that her husband and sister were conspiring to steal her son from her.

When Gades returned home from his work last evening, his wife and child were missing. He searched for them and about midnight found them in a nearby park. He persuaded his wife to return. Gades sat by a window and his wife went to a bedroom in their little flat. He fell asleep and it was nearly morning when he was awakened by groans. Running to the bedroom, he found the woman crouching beside the bed on which lay the body of his only child. Grasping his wife by the arm, Gades attempted to take the knife from her. She turned upon him and in a struggle for the weapon his hands were severely cut.

Gades ran into the street and called for help. Policeman Costello responded and called an ambulance. The babe’s body was taken to the station-house and the mother was locked up. There it was found that she was wounded.

“There was no reason to kill Hans,” she told the sergeant, “but when I could not get a chance to kill my husband, because he watched me so closely, I had to kill his son for revenge. I hated to kill the boy, but I wanted to make his father wretched.”

FULL TEXT: DALLAS, May 7.—(UP) - Charges of murder were on file Friday against Mrs. Mary K. Frailey, 41, who told police she shot and killed her two children rather than see them go away with their father. Detective Inspector Will Fritz filed a complaint against Mrs. Frailey after she told, him she shot her two children, Watt Martin III, 7, and Louise Martin, 6, on the day that the children planned to go to Miami Beach, Fla., with their father, Walt Martin Jr.

Martin had been awarded six months’ annual custody of the children in aDallas court Wednesday. Fritz said Mrs. Frailey told him “I did not want to give my children to their father or anyone else.” In a signed statement, Mrs. Frailey told how she went to town, bought a .38 caliber pistol, and returned to the apartment where she lived with the children and A. S. W. Frailey. She said she shot both children in the head, while the boy was sitting on a bed and while the girl was sitting in a chair.

Mrs. Leon Jackson, a neighbor, said that Mrs. Frailey ran downstairs after the shooting and said: “I’ve killed them. Call the detectives or the police.”

“They’re in Heaven now,” she added, according to Mrs. Jackson; “He won’t get them.” Martin, the father of the children, almost collapsed in the lobby of a downtown hotel when he learned of the shooting. He had just made arrangements with Mrs. Frailey to call for the children, and had planned to leave on a late train for Miami Beach.

The shootings climaxed a weeklong court fight over custody of the children, during which it was brought out that Mrs. Frailey’s marriage to Frailey was not legal, since his divorce from a former wife had been set aside. Frailey works as a Dallas radio announcer under the name of Dick Parker. He was formerly a professional boxer under the name of Marty Gallagher.

He and Mrs. Frailey were married at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 9, 1940.

[“Murder Charged To Mother In Shooting Of Two Children,” syndicated (UP), The Abilene Reporter-News (Tx.), May 7, 1943, p. 14]

FULL TEXT: San Jose, Oct. 13. – “I guess I did it to get revenge on my husband for picking on me.”

That was the reason given by 19-year-old Mrs. Shirley Flodstrom who confessed to police yesterday that she strangled her six months old son by forcing a pajama sleeve down his throat.

The baby, David Andrew, died last Wednesday. At first the death was listed as accidental strangulation, but police officers, headed by Chief of Detectives Bart L. Collins, continued to investigate when Mrs. Flodstrom failed to show any emotion over the baby’s death.

The mother was questioned several times. Collins reported that he questioned her again at length yesterday and she broke down and confessed she had killed the child.

“I was upset,” Collins quoted her as saying. “My husband had been picking on me all morning. The baby was fussy and wouldn’t sleep.”

“Dick had gone to work. Suddenly everything got black. I remember it all. I stuffed the pajama sleeve in his mouth until he stopped breathing.”

“It was to repay my husband. I didn’t think of it long, though. I just popped into my head.”

According to the police reports, the baby died about 11 a. m. last Wednesday. Mrs. Flodstrom called her husband, Richard, 23, a stock clerk at a San Jose paper company, at his place of employment shortly afterwards. He summoned an ambulance and rushed home.

He told police he had been satisfied with his wife’s explanation that the baby had strangled accidentally.

Collins said her started wondering about the death when Mrs. Flodstrom too everything so calmly. After questioning her, he learned that another of the couple’s children had died in Monterey in January.

“The coroner’s office in Monterey says that the death was listed as caused by pneumonia, but that there were certain circumstances about it which made them all suspicious down there,” Collins said.

Monterey police said the child, Richard Jr., 10 months old, was found dead with a corner of a towel stuffed in his mouth.

An autopsy on January 28 showed that the baby had pneumonia, and the matter was dropped. At the time, Richard Flodstrom was stationed at Fort Ord.

Mrs. Flodstrom is being held at the County Jail for investigation of murder.

FULL TEXT: San Jose – The attorney for a 19-year-old. mother charged with strangling her 6-month-old son says she repudiates a confession which police contend she gave them.

Byron Snow, attorney for Mrs. Shirley Lang Flodstrom, said his client didn't know what she was saying when she told police she had stuffed a pajama sleeve down the throat of her baby son, David, last week.

Officers quoted Mrs. Flodstrom as saying she strangled the child “to repay my husband” for two years of nagging and bickering. Snow, however, said Mrs. Flodstrom was worn out by five days of questioning about David's death and the death of another son, 10-month-old Richard, last January in Monterey.

A murder complaint was filed against the young mother yesterday and Municipal Judge Percy O'Connor set Oct, 22 for entering of a plea and preliminary examination.

Snow, dean of the law school at nearby Santa Clara University, said he entered the case at the request of Mrs. Flodstrom's 23-year-old husband, Richard, a paper-company stock clerk. Snow said Flodstrom told him he" and his wife are "still very much in love."

Police said this story conflicted with what Flodstrom told them. Authorities, meanwhile saidthey have received no report from Monterey about the death of the Flodstrom's other son. A coroner’s report attributed the boy's death to pneumonia. The report said the baby was found dead with the corner of a towel stuffed in his mouth.

FULL TEXT: The release of Mrs. Shirley Ann Flodstrom, 18, San Joss mother accused of murdering her six months old child, was ordered today by the State District Court of Appeal in San Francisco.

The court acted on a writ of habeas corpus petition sought by Mrs. Flodstrom’s attorney, Byron J. Snow, and held that there was insufficient evidence introduced at the preliminary hearing to hold her on the murder charge.

Best evidence that the child’s death might have been caused by a “criminal agency,” the court decision said, would have been the testimony of the coroner, which was not taken at the hearing. The court pointed out that if this omission was inadvertent, the coroner's testimony still could be taken. Mrs. Flodstrom, wife of Richard Flodstrom, 23, a paper company worker in San Jose, was charged with murder after allegedly confessing to police that she stuffed a pajama sleeve in the baby’s mouth on Oct. 6. She later repudiated the confession.

Monday, August 22, 2011

FULL TEXT: Two little girls with winning smiles yesterday were ordered returned to the custody of their mother over their tearful objections of their grandmother.

The difficult decision was made by Superior Court Judge Roy L. Hearndon in denying a petition filed by the grandmother, Mrs. Madge Williams, 50, of 3909 Alla Road, Venice, for the guardianship of the children, Starr Anne Schneider, 10, and Sherry Elaine Schneider, 4.

Mrs. Williams’ petition was fought by her daughter, Mrs. Ethel Martin, 27, UCLA library clerk, who charged that her mother had deliberately turned the children against her.

From the witness stand, Mrs. Williams charged that her daughter had been “running around” with “a half dozen other men” while still wed to the father of the girls, Frederick J. Schneider, 32, an aircraft company employee.

The grandmother testified that her daughter returned home under the influence of liquor on many occasions, failed to take proper care of the children, and in recent months paid them hardly any visits.

Mrs. Martin, now the wife of Earl W. Martin, 32, bus driver, countered with accusations that her mother had engendered hatred against her because she had divorced Schneider.

“My mother tried to hold Fred and me together by force,” Mrs. Martin declared. “There was no love between us, but still my mother insisted that we remain together. She upheld his side on every dispute we had.”

Mrs. Martin added that she had realized in recent months that she herself had been the victim of circumstances such as her children now face.

“After my father and mother were divorced,” Mrs. Martin testified, “my mother turned me against my father. I hated my father while I was a little girl.”

At the conclusion of testimony, Judge Herndon interviewed the older child. On announcement of the decision, the younger girl was already in her mother’s arms but Starr Anne broke into tears.

FULL TEXT: The brilliant daughter of a brilliant father did a fine thing not long ago. She proposed to the state legislature of Indiana a bill that has become state law, and that has been copied by New York and several other states. Some day in the not too distant future the law may become a federal regulation.

The woman is young and charming, with an intelligent, fine face; she is married and has a son and a daughter. A member of the state house of representatives of Indiana, Roberta West Nicholson has the further distinction of being the daughter-in-law of the late Meredith Nicholson, writer of many best sellers.

The new law prohibits all suits for alienation of affection, breach of promise and seduction. It is a death blow at the power that has been held for so long by languishing ladies, whose love, trustfully extended to kindly elderly gents encountered in night clubs and at race tracks, is subsequently found to have had a value of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars and scrupulously estimated odd cents.

Mrs. Nicholson contended that most actions for breach of promise and alienation of affection have extortion as their motive. We all know that. When we pick up our morning newspapers and see the injured woman, when we study her vapid face and her permanent wave, we know perfectly well that not a natural tear has ever fallen from those bright calculating eyes, that the thick lacquer of that soft, characterless mouth has never been jeopardized by a tremble. The mere headlines. “Claims Heart Broken –Bitterly Regrets Impulsive Reciprocation of Elderly Midas’ Affection,” tells us just what sort of woman she is.

That the Nicholson bill became a law in Indiana, where it was drafted, and has been rapidly adopted in other states whose citizens are interested in whittling one more phase of the law into terms of modernity and honesty is a step toward sanity and dignify; and we need sanity and dignity if ever a nation did. It is humiliating to balanced women to read, day after day, of the Peaches and Rhodas and Peggys whose fantastic affairs of the heart are spread so lavishly over the front pages of the morning paper.

“She getsthree thousand dollars for eighty letters,” thinks some decent little girl in an obscure country town somewhere, or some discouraged factory worker, whose honor and integrity haven't brought her more than a bare living. And into her heart comes the idea that there are easier ways to obtain big checks and heavy furs, and diamond wrist watches than working for them! Why should she work hard for fifty-two weeks a year for so little, when this other girl not any smarter or prettier than she, merely has to flatter some fatuous old man into writing her a promissory letter to be made independent for life?

The heart balm law suit has become one of our most profitable rackets. Women –

certain types of women – have become as sharp as weasels in perceiving chances to establish claims of this sort, find rich men go in terror of their lives. One famous case was that in which a generous, sympathetic wife offered her city house to a certain attractive widow with two small children. The widow was penniless, the woman was taking her children away to the mountains; she couldn’t bare to think of those babies trapped in a slum, while her cool apartment in the breezy East Fifties was empty.

During the course of the summer the husband, who was living at a club, went home three times to look up a book or an old suit or some other small possession, and at the end of the summer the widow sued him as father of her unborn child. Eventually, she was exposed as a professional blackmailer, but the tenants of the once happy apartment never will recover from the effect of the law suit and the shock.

A very rich and popular professional man, who happens to be a bachelor, told me some years ago that he never could ask a woman friend to dine with him unless he asked other friends, too. “Twice women have accused me of luring them into my house to take advantage of them,” said this cultured, gentle, simple man. “In each case the sum mentioned washalf a million. Both times I compromised out of court for much less – it’s not pleasant, of course, but I can’t afford to face that sort of case.”

Another man, this one younger and extremely rich, was asked to dine at a certain San Francisco home some years ago by the daughter of the house, a restless little debutante, obviously anxious to make a good match. When he got there, expecting to find a formal dinner in prospect, he girl was alone, and in a lace negligee and slippers, and the dinner was served by a foreign born maid, who later testified to the loving relations of the pair. The girl announced to her mother that Herbert, under promise of marriage, and so on and so on and so on. This cost the boy one hundred thousand dollars.

Drifting about Europe are many beautifully groomed, clever, attractive women whose only business is blackmail. They attach themselves to rich men; they speak languages charmingly, they know the right places to go, they can make a visit that promised to be flat and dull suddenly sparkle into life. They are very much al home at the race tracks, the theaters, the smartest cafes. They introduce titled strangers, and often the titled strangers have enough that is real about them to convince the American visitor that he is making a tremendous hit in the highest circles of European society.

In the thrill and delight of such a friendship, notes are exchanged; pet names are scribbled on dinner menus and programs, and the appreciative man goes lo Cartier's or Chanel's and sends his lovely cicerone a handsome bag or a jewelled clip. These notes, these bags, these clips he sees again when her lawyer calls. His spirit dies within him as he imagines himself trying to explain to the judge just how harmless and merry and unthinking the whole thing has been!

A certain woman has recently successfully claimed a fortune for a few letters from a man whose tremendous wealth has made him a target for this sort of thing all his life. One would think that any judge would merely laugh in the face of an attorney who once more attacked him from this angle, but even without the slightest evidence against him, such a man, just for peace, often takes the easier way of compromise rather than fight. Commenting on this case another man casually expressed his opinion of the woman, whose life history is – well, unusual, to put it nicely. Now she is going to sue the second man for a second fortune, for defamation of her character.

Real affection probably never has figured in such a suit. It is impossible to imagine that a woman who cares for a man, whose heart is deeply wounded, whose affections have been betrayed, could produce in court the letters that once made her so happy, commercializing the pet names and the intimate hours, putting a price on every kiss. Not the most desperate poverty would force a woman of any fineness to such a step.

So more power to the law that will make it impossible for any woman to trap a man, young and silly, or old and sillier, into the miseries of a law suit over this sort of thing. I never saw a “love balm” case yet in which the woman was not of an age and type to know exactly what she was doing; there is very little “leading astray” in these sophisticated days. Girls will always have the privilege of breaking engagements when they feel like it, and it is ridiculous to refuse men similar rights. If the engagement hasn't overstepped its proper boundaries both the jilted girl and the jilted man are pretty sure to feel in time that thebreak before marriage is a better way out than the divorce afterward.

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): Charges that her own parents have “assumed a proprietary interest” in her 9-year-old daughter, Marlene Matchan, were voiced yesterday by dark-haired, blue-eyed Mrs. Louise A. McBride, 28, before Superior Court Judge William R. McKay.

Mrs. McBride sought a writ of habeas corpus to wrest custody of the girl from the maternal grandparents, Col. George H. Zautner, 74, USA ret., and Mrs. Florence Zautner, 63, who live at 1530 Glenview Ave., Glendale.

The distraught mother, solemn but dry-eyed, said she and the girl lived with the Zautners for several years while her then husband, William R. Matchan, 43, radio singer, was in Army service. Mrs. McBride added that she divorced Matchan in 1956 and the following year was married to Ralph E. McBride, 38, telephone company technician.

~ Answer of Parents ~

For some years after her second marriage, according to Mrs. McBride, she lived in a small apartment and could not take Marlene into her custody. But a year ago, the mother added, she and McBride established a home at 19464 Hartland St., Reseda, and since then she has been trying to regain custody of the child but has met with persistent objection from her parents.

But the Zautners replied with assertions that their daughter has never taken great interest in their granddaughter and is not a fit person to rear the child by reason of her excessive use of alcohol. The grandparents charged that the last time Mrs. McBride tried to visit the girl, she, Mrs. McBride, was under the influence of liquor.

The court also was informed by Mrs. McBride’s attorney, William T. Hays, and the Zautner lawyer, E. M. Clark, that Matchan recently brought another proceeding set for hearing Sep. 8, for custody of his daughter. On the witness stand Mrs. Zautner admitted she advised her former son-in-law to take this step to protect the child.

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): For a few tense moments the tearful protests of a 9-year-old girl, Marlene Matchan, yesterday threatened to thwart the court order which took her from the custody of her grandmother and placed her in that of her mother.

But it took the personal intervention of Superior Judge William R. McKay to reconcile the little girl to the idea of leaving the courtroom with her mother, Mrs. Louise Z. McBride, 28, when the child’s every wish was to remain with her grandmother, Mrs. Florence Zautner, 64.

~ Judge Leaves Bench ~

“I don’t want to live with my mother!” the girl shouted as Judge McKay left the bench after delivering his decision.

The child at the time was sitting next to Mrs. Zautner, Mrs. McBride, who is Mrs. Zautner’s daughter, walked toward Marlene with arms outstretched.

“Get away from me!” protested the child, her brown hair parted down the middle and braided and her bobby sox somehow out of keeping with her plight. “I want to stay with my grandmother.”

The jurist had waited deliberately until Mrs. McBride’s father, Col. George H. Zautner, 74, retired Army officer, had left the court before making the ruling. He did this, the jurist said, because he feared that Col. Zautner, who had testified he suffered from a heart ailment, might be in danger in the play of emotions certain to become evident.

~ Appeals to Lawyer ~

But now Mrs. McBride had the writ of habeas corpus she sought. Yet she stood there, helpless before the child’s resistance. She appealed to her lawyer, William T. Hays.

The lawyer darted into Judge McKay’s chambers, protesting that the child’s emotional outburst seemed to be the result of coaching from the grandmother, who firmly denied the accusation. Judge McKay ordered his bailiff, Archie C. Carter, to escort Marlene into chambers. Still in tears, Marlene complied.

“Hasn’t your mother been nice to you? The judge asked the little girl.

“Oh yes, she has,” Marlene replied. “But I get to do more things I want at my grandmother’s.”

~ Must Go With Mother ~

“Well,” said the judge, “you must now go with your mother and you must be nice to her. Will you promise me that you will do that?”

“All right, judge,” Marlene agreed as the jurist led her to the side door where he expected her mother to be waiting. But it was Mrs. Zautner who was waiting there. Marlene flew into her arms and tears again streamed down her cheeks. Judge McKay was perturbed.

“You have brutally poisoned this child’s mind against your own daughter!” the judge warned Mrs. Zautner. “If you do not desist from further interference I will see that the proper authorities investigate your activities.”

But even so it was some time before Mrs. Zautner’s attorney, E. M. Clark, could persuade her to take leave of her granddaughter. She left in the company of her friend, Mrs. Edith Conrad. A few minutes later Marlene departed, her hands in those of her mother and her stepfather, Ralph E. McBride, 38, telephone technician.

Mrs. McBride had testified at the outset of the hearing that Marlene was born to her and her husband, William R. Matchan, 43, radio singer, but that much of the time she and the child lived with the Zautners at 1530 Grandview Ave., Glendale.

When she and McBride were married three years ago, Mrs. McBride said, they were unable to take the child into their small apartment and left her with the Zautners.

~ Now Lives in Reseda ~

Since, Mrs. McBride said, sshe has established a home at 19464 Hartland St. Reseda, but her parents refused to give up Marlene.

The Zautners, resisting their daughter’s writ, charged that Mrs. McBride in recent years used alcohol to excess and has become unfit to rear the little girl. But Judge McKay in making his decision held that these accusations were greatly exaggerated.

“Never in my 30 years on the bench.” The jurist said, “have I seen such venom and ill-feeling in a case. It is my hope that the memory of this hearing will be obliterated from the minds of all concerned.”

FULL TEXT (Aricle 3 of 3): Marlene Matchan, a 9-year-old with a precocious vocabulary, reported to Superior Judge William R. McKay yesterday that she no longer rues the day when the court transferred her custody from her grandmother to her mother.

The bright-eyed, brown-haired little girl who 12 days earlier flailed her arms, stamped her feet and shed bitter tears of protest, called dry-eyed and smiling upon Judge McKay.

She paid the visit in keeping with the request she made herself last Aug. 27 when the jurist granted her mother, Mrs. Louise Z. McBride, 28, a writ of habeas corpus, removing the child from the care of her grandmother, Mrs. Florence Zautner, 64, and Col. George H. Zautner, 74, USA, ret.

The Zautners, Mrs. McBride’s own parents, had resisted with charges that she drank to excess and had neglected the child since her divorce from Marlene’s father, William R. Matchan, 43, radio singer.

But Mrs. McBride, now wed to Ralph E. McBride, 38, telephone technician, denied these accusations. She said she had allowed Marlene to remain with the Zautners only until she could establish a proper home, Mrs. McBride said she now had such a place at 19464 Hartland St., Reseda.

“Are you happy now at your mothers?” the jurist asked.

“Oh, yes,” Marlene replied. “My mother is going to buy me a TV set. Now I can listen to all the politics. Too bad I missed the conventions.”

Judge McKay admonished Marlene that she must continue to love her grandparents and do her best to bring about a reconciliation between them and her mother.

“I love them all,” Marlene observed. “I’ve talked to my grandmother on the phone several times since I’ve been with my mother. But, you know, she is a doting grandmother.”